


Acceptable Risks

by Penknife



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Consensual But Not Necessarily A Good Idea, Drunk Sex, M/M, Rough Sex, Undernegotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:22:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29343519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/pseuds/Penknife
Summary: It's unclear which of them is making a worse decision, and yet here they are.
Relationships: Fenris/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 14
Kudos: 42
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Acceptable Risks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SouthernContinentSkies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernContinentSkies/gifts).



Fenris comes to Skyhold looking for Hawke, and finds that she has gone on to Weisshaupt, for reasons that are not as clear as Fenris would like. That probably means that Fenris should follow her to Weisshaupt. The whole point of coming here was to keep his friend out of trouble, and she clearly hasn't gotten better at not getting into trouble.

That said, her current situation seems to be "heading to a Warden fortress to tell the Grey Wardens how to be Grey Wardens properly," rather than "arrested by Cassandra Pentaghast" or "fallen through a hole in the sky" or "eaten by demons." And it's snowing, and the roads in the Frostback mountains are ludicrously awful. It seems like an acceptable risk to stay in Skyhold until the weather turns.

Skyhold isn't a city. It's barely a place, but of course it has a tavern. The tavern is occupied by a mercenary company, none of whom seem to be able to shut up, and an assortment of other Inquisition members who do their drinking somewhat more quietly. Compared to the Hanged Man, it's an extremely tame tavern. Fenris drinks there for several nights running, and no one tries to pick his pocket, start a fight with him, or offer him sexual favors for coin. It almost makes him homesick for Kirkwall.

The third evening, a startlingly handsome man with a staff slung across his back saunters across the tavern, sits down at the same table, and favors Fenris with a radiant smile. He is, from the look of him, quite drunk already. "I'm certain that I'd remember seeing you here before."

The accent is so very familiar. Fenris fights the urge to stab the man at once. "You've never seen me before," Fenris says in Tevene, and hopes that it's true. From the accent and the staff, the man is an altus or a magister, but not all of them knew Danarius. There's at least a fighting chance that the man looks at him and sees "hostile stranger," not "Danarius's pet."

"But you're from Tevinter," the man says, in a moment of unguarded delight before all the weight of the social chasm between them comes crashing down and turns the expression into something far more guarded, but still irritatingly interested. "In which case you're probably not glad to see me, are you? My name is Dorian Pavus, and I assure you I don't bite."

"You're a mage," Fenris says in tones that he hopes are chilly enough to convey that he dislikes condescension as much as outright contempt. "I'd hardly let you close enough to find out."

"Although you look as if you might bite," Dorian says, after enough of a pause that common sense might have been warring with whatever demon is driving the man to keep talking.

"I might tear your heart out of your chest," Fenris says.

"Metaphorically, or literally? I can't say that I relish either one."

"What do you want, mage?"

"To get fucked," Dorian says, articulating the words very precisely. "Is that of any interest to you? I realize I'm being terribly forward, but you don't seem inclined to small talk."

"Are you _slumming?_ " Fenris asks, caught between indignation and delight. It's entertaining to watch a Tevinter altus work this hard to degrade himself, even if Fenris doesn't plan to help him.

"I'm—" Dorian begins, something very dark and lost in his eyes for a moment, as if he might say "lonely" or "tired" or something that will make Fenris want to hit him. Instead he shifts tone mid-sentence, to finish with, "Freezing cold, unpleasantly sober, and still disappointingly unravished by anyone in this establishment. This state of affairs cannot continue. Would you care to do something about it?"

"Hey, Pavus," one of the mercenaries calls from a table across the room, a fresh-faced young man doing his drinking in armor and just the hint of a much less rarified Tevinter accent under his brisk Ferelden words. "I wouldn't."

"Thank you, Cremisius, your opinion is duly noted," Dorian says. He smiles more brightly. "Krem over there thinks that you are likely to be hazardous to my health. Are you likely to be hazardous to my health?"

There's nothing like being told not to do something by a Tevinter citizen to make Fenris feel like doing it. "Very much so," he says, baring his teeth in something like a smile.

"Wonderful, follow me. There is a charming alley just outside—well, not really an alley, as we're lacking in streets, but it will serve."

Fenris follows Dorian out, giving the Tevene mercenary a chilly glare as he passes. Once they're out the door, he slams Dorian up against the stone wall of the building. Dorian makes a noise that might be either pain or satisfaction or some mixture of both.

"I make the rules," Fenris says. "You do what I tell you. None of this is for you."

"Understood," Dorian says, a little faintly.

"Show me you understand, then. On your knees." Dorian drops to his knees with the ease of long familiarity. Fenris gets a hand in his hair and holds tight. "Suck me off."

It's something he's thought about. A magister on his knees to service him. He could slap the man across the face, or call him a slut, or pet his hair and call him a good dog. The possibilities are most certainly what's making him shake.

Dorian wraps his hands around the back of Fenris's thighs to draw him closer, and even through the fabric, the lyrium sings against a mage's touch, a bright intolerable itch. Dorian lets go and sits back on his heels, startled. "Does it hurt you when I touch—"

"Did I say you could stop?" Fenris demands.

"You did not," Dorian says, complicated lust replacing concern in his expression, and he returns to his task with a will.

The height of arousal feels too much like the singing pain of the lyrium, a bright mounting rush of sensation like an itch he can't scratch. He grits his teeth and bears it, knowing by now that it's worth it for the climax. It comes without warning, and he groans and spills himself into Dorian's mouth.

Dorian swallows and sits back on his heels, looking up at Fenris with something like hope in his expression.

"You do that so well," Fenris says, in a tone that doesn't make it a compliment.

"Oh, I know," Dorian says, and Fenris leaves him there to pick himself back up.

Fenris definitely isn't planning to repeat the mistake, and yet the next evening he goes back to the Hanged Man and waits. The mercenaries are gone, out somewhere doing actual work. Dorian Pavus comes in early and still apparently sober. Fenris downs his own drink and waits.

Dorian comes over to his table like a man who knows better but isn't planning on listening to his own better judgment. "Fancy meeting you here again. I come here so seldom, it's a stroke of luck."

Fenris is not one tiny bit interested in this man's reasons for spending his evenings drinking alone. "You remember the rules?" he says.

"I'm a quick study. Buy me a drink first, though?"

He's tempted to make the man buy him a drink instead, but he's not the one being picked up, here, not the one being used. "Wine for me," he tells the barman. "Brandy for him."

"There's whiskey," the man says.

"I'll take wine," Dorian says.

"He'll take whiskey," Fenris says, and pays.

Dorian makes a face at the taste of the whiskey. Fenris sips at the stuff in his own glass. "You should be glad that I'm sparing you the wine."

"Merciful, indeed," Dorian says, draining his glass in one long, thirsty swallow and setting it down hard.

Fenris pins Dorian's hand on the table with his own. "Don't look for mercy here."

"I assure you, I'm not," Dorian says. "And I can play this game sober as well as drunk, but I've less appetite for doing it outside the bar. I have a room. I expect you do as well."

"Mine," Fenris says, because while it's more dangerous that way, it'll be more satisfying to make Dorian crawl on Fenris's floor.

They don't talk much on the way back to Fenris's guest room. Fenris rounds on Dorian as soon as they get inside. "What have you learned?"

"Am I reciting?"

"No, you're answering back," Fenris says, and slams Dorian back against the wall, his hand on Dorian's chest. It's enough to know that he could reach through the yielding ghosts of Dorian's rib bones to find his heart. He doesn't actually have to do it.

"You make the rules," Dorian says. "I will do as you say. This is not for my pleasure." He's savoring the taste of the words in his mouth too much for Fenris to ignore.

"Don't tell me you aren't enjoying this."

"How am I to obey your previous rules and answer truthfully at the same time?"

"You can't," Fenris says, flatly, because that ought to be obvious.

"I am yours to command," Dorian says, which is a clever enough answer that Fenris doesn't slap him.

"I'm going to fuck you, then. On the bed."

Dorian strips enough to make that practical, and sprawls on the bed. Fenris pins him under his own weight and slicks himself with spit, as much preparation as he thinks Dorian has any reason to expect. He thrusts in ruthlessly hard, and hears the man's breath catch in a noise just short of a groan.

Fenris holds Dorian by the back of the neck, bearing him down with each thrust, riding him. It's like his fantasies, except that no one is going to wind up dead at the end. He has self-control, he remembers where he is, he knows that even if this man deserves killing—and don't they all, really, deserve killing—

Dorian makes a noise that mingles pain with pleasure, and Fenris wonders what he's getting out of this, really. There must be people in Skyhold who would fuck him without hurting him, but maybe not anyone else who is, just now, so intensely focused on him.

Fenris slows his thrusting but wraps one arm around Dorian's chest, his hand over Dorian's heart. Dorian leans into the hold, clearly believing it to be a caress rather than a threat. "Do what you want," Dorian says.

He doesn't, he realizes, actually want to kill this man. But he wants something more satisfying than just fucking him. He strips off his own shirt and the rest of Dorian's clothes, pressing his chest against Dorian's back, skin to skin.

It _hurts_ , a stinging itch up every lyrium stripe. Dorian jerks and twists, and he's certain that it doesn't feel pleasant to him either. "A magister did this to me," Fenris says. "To make me a more useful tool."

"Does it hurt?" Dorian asks, as if he cares.

"Yes," Fenris says, and starts thrusting again. It's better without trying to hide from the metallic crawling sensation of the lyrium, better when it all mingles into the same thing, pain and fury and arousal, the sweat beading on his back and the hot prickle of magic against his skin that tells him that he's bedding a mage, he's _fucking_ one of _them_ —

He can feel it when Dorian comes underneath him with a satisfied groan. His own climax is right there, suddenly, hard and overwhelming enough that he can't help crying out. He bites his lip to silence himself and thrusts until he softens, and then pulls out and lets himself collapse to the mattress.

"Does any of this help?" Dorian asks after a while, almost conversationally. The man knows better than to touch him, anyway, though they're still lying a hands-width apart, breathing hard.

Fenris lets out a humorless breath. "Does this help with whatever your problems are? Please don't tell me about them."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Dorian says. The silence drags out for a while. "This probably isn't the best choice I could be making at present, no."

"Good," Fenris says, but he doesn't kick the man out of his bed yet. There's something to listening to someone else's breathing, steady and slowing; even the company of an enemy is proof he's not alone.


End file.
